Up first are current prime purveyors of 60s garage revival, the cautiously ramshackle quartet we've come to know and largely love as The Vaccines. The vintage guitar toters prowl atop a sea of gently bobbing skulls and splutters, as bumptious murmurs of shaving mishaps and pseudo-Skins debauchery are intermittently overheard between the likes of a magnificently lethargic Blow It Up and rapid hurtle through a vaguely raucous Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra). Despite the excessively obnoxious Post Break-Up Sex, rattled off almost ashamedly, the London troupe bound through We're Happening with Strokes-ish conviction, Freddie Cowan owing more than merely a glossy white Strat and wiry afro aesthetic to Albert Hammond Jr. as he cuts a jolty figure, whammy bar inducing excessive vibrato, foot atop monitors all the while. Fitting more vibrant retro into half an hour than Gloucester Road's expansive spectrum of charity shops can muster in a working week, Justin Young frantically shifts and slides his capo up and down and up and down his cheap chic Danelectro with abandon, the prim and proper surfers of hype purveying the paragon of forward-thinking backwardness. All In White meanwhile is altogether more anthemic, and whilst the lavish dousing of strobe may at this point in time be somewhat premature (they're yet to release their third single and their debut LP is a month off yet) the joyous European Sun is sure to bask Barcelona in effervescent ecstasy come May.
It's then on to Everything Everything, the eclectic outfit's falsetto-smeared wonk pop at its most disjointedly euphoric in the live setting. Adorned in matching monochrome boiler suits, the quartet tinker with electronically-orientated post-punk to devastating effect, uniting roisterous bass lines with fraught rhythms and smudges of watercolour synth. From the unadulteratedly majestic pigeonhole-rupturing Suffragette Suffragette to the hip and hop tendencies of ludicrously arresting Schoolin' that in turn eventually mutates into a bastardised take on Rihanna's Rude Boy, Jonathan Higgs et al. are nigh on flawless tonight. The artillery-like drums of Photoshop Handsome, colliding with exuberant lyricisms of airbrush action and video game innuendo pertain to an equally unrefined reincarnation of cult Brixton types Clor, whilst MY KZ UR BF, predictably, provides the vowel-phobic highlight to a giddy set as disorientating as a stint swirling around in the innards of a Lotto machine with ball set number 4.
Geographically there's a fair bit of mileage between Croydon basement and Bristol Academy yet sonically, Skream, Benga and bass overlord Artwork, aka Magnetic Man are more than aptly intertwined in the subterraneous grit and grime of the west country's dubstep rooting. Devoid of Katy B/Angela Hunte/Ms. Dynamite cameo, a ragged rasta who appears to have waded out from the murky depths of the Avon incessantly interjects inanities and stilted vocal reworks through vocoder, detracting slightly from the ribcage-shuddering vigour splurged from towering blocks of speaker. Such is the diversity of this year's tour that perhaps the most anticipated act of the eve are no longer boys behind guitars however, but are now boys crouched behind glaring Apple LEDs having escaped the confines of their all-singing, all-dancing cage structure they lovingly lugged around last summer's festival circuit, cinematic closer Getting Nowhere simultaneously dispelling their waning dubstep branding and providing perhaps the most eminent four minutes of the four hours spent within the grotty walls of the Academy. The recurrent abrasion of Mad, aired outright before seeping furtively onto the tail-end of a strident I Need Air too is hookier than any New Order bass thud. Flying Into Tokyo, the trio's one moment of true mellow to date is blissful in the extreme, although there must be few not hankering after a fully orchestral rendition of the track by now...
And so to tonight's headliners, the ubiquitous, but relentlessly belligerent Crystal Castles. Alice Glass hobbled around ATP last December, and given the pair's relentless touring habits, has presumably had little to none of the ordered rest since. Tonight's set is introduced by a disheveled roadie rather emphatically proclaiming how she'd been ordered to call the tour off. Instead, her crutch merely serves as a stage prop upon which she swivels menacingly, a mangled third limb teetering on the edge of the sticky, tape-daubed stage beneath. From growling menacingly to Black Panther amidst shadow awash with glaringly kaleidoscopic, frenetic spotlights, to the synth swoon of Crimewave that still sounds like Gameboy Pocket ballad, the pair are indubitably peerless and remain fearless. Whilst the baneful melancholy of more recent cuts Baptism and Celestica see Kath and Glass move in altogether more radio-friendly, or at least less drivetime-distressing territory, a visceral Doe Deer, shredded to tatters by thrash guitar is almost indiscernible, yet triumphantly so. Closer Not In Love meanwhile, recently given a vocal rework by Cure man Robert Smith, has metamorphosed into something of a bona fide paean for the undersexed and unloved. After such an eclectic, electric evening, it's almost unfathomable to have anything but fondness for the NME...
